When Bill Bengen originally coined the term 'Safe Withdrawal Rate' in his seminal article in 1994 Journal of Financial Planning, he made some crucial assumptions. He assumed a portfolio invested in 50% US Equities and 50% US Intermediate Bonds. He also assumed a 30-year retirement period, and he took no account of portfolio and adviser fees.

In the real world, we have to account for fees. And we are not limited to a 50/50 portfolio or a 30-year timescale.

In this short video, I show how having a different asset allocation, timescale or fee level changes sustainable withdrawal rate from a retirement income portfolio.

Timeline can uniquely illustrate flexible spending strategies (i.e., Guardrails and Ratcheting) and has more sophisticated illustration tools to show the impact of longevity and how much wealth accumulates in the non-failure scenarios